TalkingApes

Newsvine – Review: 'Over the Hedge'

"Over the Hedge," the latest star-studded, computer-animated, talking-animal extravaganza, is an indictment of the same sort of suburban overconsumption that the film encourages through its marketing.

Glad to see someone else felt the same way about this film as we did. Funny how, without any prodding or prevous discussion, my 4 year old told me that he didn't enjoy the movie. "It was boring", he said. I felt the same, and I understood all the context and social commentary in the movie. We already know all this stuff… why should we be brow-beaten while we paid to be entertained?

The cheeky family comedy, from the people behind "Antz" and "Chicken Run," wags its finger at all of us humans for buying more food then we need — fast food, junk food, food we have delivered because we're too lazy to leave the comfort of our cookie-cutter houses and drive to the grocery store in our gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles, which, like the ever-growing encroachment of suburbia, are contributing to the destruction of the environment the cuddly "Over the Hedge" creatures call home.

We have too much stuff, the film is trying to say, and we continue to acquire more stuff.

And yet, off-screen, "Over the Hedge" simultaneously embraces a number of companies that provide such stuff and are helping promote the film through advertising. Wal-Mart has made the movie the centerpiece of its summer marketing campaign. There's special "Over the Hedge" packaging on Crunch 'n Munch snacks (that is good stuff, though). And of course, there are "Over the Hedge"-themed kids' meals at Wendy's.

The irony!

I didn't find Antz or Chicken Run particularly entertaining, and had I researched this movie beforehand, I would have selected not to go see it. Talk about hypocritical, that is exactly how I felt when this movie was unfolding. They're preaching against all this crap meanwhile being a part of the "problem" that they preach against.

So where is the originality? And more to the point, what's the point? If "Over the Hedge" aims solely to entertain, it does so in a way that's mildly amusing but mostly hackneyed. If it aims to instruct, it weakens its own argument with the plethora of product tie-ins.

Exactly. The point was to tell us all that we're stupid, yet they market their crap to our kids, contradicting the movie itself. Don't go see it. Don't rent it. Don't buy it. Wait till it comes on TNT or something and watch it then, maybe when it's rainy and you have the flu, or it's 3 AM and you can't sleep.